Putin sends ?Chechen? special operation forces to SyriaFri Dec 09, 2016 05:26 | The SakerThis SITREP was written for the Unz Review: http://www.unz.com/tsaker/putin-sends... Very interesting news today: according to the journal Izvestia, Russia will be sending operators from the so-called “Chechen” special forces battalions

Moveable Feast Cafe 2016/12/08 ? Open ThreadThu Dec 08, 2016 21:30 | Herb Swanson2016/12/08 21:30:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

His own man ? or someone?s puppet?Wed Dec 07, 2016 18:05 | mod editorThis comment was chosen by Mod KL from the post “Is Donald Trump really only a showman who will prepare the USA for war?”. The moderator feels this comment is

Isis And The Recent Developments In Iraq And Syria

Partially fuelled, no doubt, by US and Saudi money and weapons supplied for the fight in Syria, ISIS, a branch of Al Qaeda has routed the Iraqi military in a series of offences across the country, taking control of significant parts of the country. These are the exact same people fighting for freedom and democracy with US and Saudi backing just across the border in Syria. The staggering cynicism of US policy in the middle east and the blatant doublespeak of their media is laid bare by these recent events in Iraq in the last few days. In an article posted to WSWS, Bill van Auken picks through the wreckage

AFP photo

Here is a quote from the article:

An essential component of the American strategy in launching a war to topple Saddam Hussein was to exploit Shia resentments in order to win allies against the Sunni-based Baathist regime. Washington crassly manipulated sectarian tensions as part of a divide and conquer strategy that ultimately unleashed sectarian warfare that led to countless thousands of deaths and the displacement of entire populations.

Even as it encouraged Shia religious parties in Iraq, the US simultaneously pursued an aggressive policy against Shia-led Iran, where these same parties had sought refuge during the reign of Saddam. Until last year, it appeared that Iran would be the target of a US-Israeli attack.

These contradictions have only intensified as Washington has sought to exploit Sunni Islamist radicalism as a force to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Syria. The net result is that, while opposing Al Qaeda-linked forces in Iraq as “terrorists,” US imperialism is supporting them on the other side of the border in Syria as fighters for “democracy” and “freedom.”

The policies pursued in one country collide with those employed in another. The US is now sending arms and contemplating air raids to prosecute the “war on terrorism” against an offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq, even as it and its Arab Gulf allies continue to send arms and aid to promote and strengthen these very same tendencies in both Libya and Syria.

Everywhere, US foreign policy is based not on principles, but on crude pragmatic maneuvers in pursuit of immediate interests, with the “war on terrorism” or “human rights” invoked as increasingly discredited justifications.

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They also "liberated" quite a lot of US ordinance and hi tech weaponry which would be pretty hard for the US to just hand over to these nutjobs by normal channels. No doubt much of this will now be directed at Assad in Syria thus helping the current US agenda there

Most of the weapons seized by Isis were taken from the al-Qayara base in Mosul, the fourth largest in the country, after two divisions of the Iraqi army fled the city en masse on Tuesday, allowing a far smaller extremist force to enter. The haul included armoured humvees, rockets, tonnes of ammunition and assault weapons.

More and more this looks like it will greatly serve the US agenda in Syria. Also it scares up oil prices quite nicely. They are currently at a high making bumper profits for the oil corporations. In the absence of middle east and Ukranian turmoil, there is currently quite a lot of oil available on the market and it should otherwise be below $100 a barrel according to analysts

starting in 2011, the disruptions often began to exceed 2 million barrels a day. Among the culprits were the Arab Spring and follow-on uprisings, the chaos in Nigeria, Iran sanctions and of course Russia president Vladimir Putin’s crypto-invasion of Ukraine.

Then last July, Libyan militants stormed oil export facilities and shut them down. As of now, the country pumps just one-eighth of the 1.6 million barrels of oil a day it produced before Muammar Qadhafi’s ouster in 2011. All in all, about 3.5 million barrels of oil a day have been off the market around the world since last fall. Those barrels have offset a 1.8 million-barrel-a-day surge of supply from the US.

As a consequence, oil prices have continued to soar. And this increase has been exacerbated recently by China’s record-setting hoarding of oil.
If it wasn’t for the disruptions, many analysts say prices would decline well below $100 a barrel.

Malaki and his government were not particularly co-operative with US interests so no big loss there. Also, currently ISIS actions dovetail nicely with the US "agenda" in Syria, arming the opposition with heavy weaponry and as a bonus, scaring up oil prices, but I expect if the ISIS rebels dare to try to attack and take over the actual oilfields themselves in the south of Iraq, they will find the US a lot less indecisive in their response and they know it. And they know it because their former US paymasters in Syria have probably told them so directly!.

This Islamic Emirate in Iraq and the Levant group yet another joint operation to save the rebels in Syria and to try and reduce Iran's influence in Iraq. It may also be designed to help accelerate the splitting up of Iraq into three regions dominated by different tribes, Kurds to the North, Sunni and then Shia.

According to Thierry Meyssan:

The IEIL is headed by Prince Abdul Rahman and commanded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It is overseen by U.S., French and Saudi officers. Thanks to the delivery of new weapons and the corruption of Iraqi officers and parliamentarians, it was able to conquer in a week the predominantly Sunni part of Iraq

Already we see moves by the USA to try to impose a no fly zone and this would be used as cover to protect their terrorists which are almost defeated in Syria.

The question that has to be asked is how does such a large band of terrorists make such sweeping advances and come out of nowhere when we know the entire Middle East is under continuous electronic and satellite surveillance. If the US was really interested in helping the Iraqi government, they would have already provided intelligence on the movement of these Jihadists. When looked at critically, it doesn't seem to make any sense. At this stage the 'ISIS' are apparently within 60 miles of Baghdad.

The conflict is casually described as “sectarian warfare” between Radical Sunni and Shia without addressing “who is behind the various factions”. What is at stake is a carefully staged US military-intelligence agenda.

Known and documented, Al Qaeda affiliated entities have been used by US-NATO in numerous conflicts as “intelligence assets” since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. In Syria, the Al Nusrah and ISIS rebels are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance, which oversees and controls the recruitment and training of paramilitary forces.

The Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) re-emerged in April 2013 with a different name and acronym, commonly referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The formation of a terrorist entity encompassing both Iraq and Syria was part of a US intelligence agenda. It responded to geopolitical objectives. It also coincided with the advances of Syrian government forces against the US sponsored insurgency in Syria and the failures of both the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its various “opposition” terror brigades.

The decision was taken by Washington to channel its support (covertly) in favor of a terrorist entity which operates in both Syria and Iraq and which has logistical bases in both countries. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’s Sunni caliphate project coincides with a longstanding US agenda to carve up both Iraq and Syria into three separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, and a Republic of Kurdistan.

Whereas the (US proxy) government in Baghdad purchases advanced weapons systems from the US including F16 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham –which is fighting Iraqi government forces– is supported covertly by Western intelligence. The objective is to engineer a civil war in Iraq, in which both sides are controlled indirectly by US-NATO.

The scenario is to arm and equip them, on both sides, finance them with advanced weapons systems and then “let them fight”.

US-NATO is involved in the recruitment, training and financing of ISIS death squads operating in both Iraq and Syria. ISIS operates through indirect channels in liaison with Western intelligence. In turn, corroborated by reports on Syria’s insurgency, Western special forces and mercenaries integrate the ranks of ISIS.........

See the full text at the link above.

This is like a micro version of the Iran - Iraq war from 1980 to 1988 where well over 1 million died. The war was pushed by the same usual Western government suspects who supplied arms to both sides and encouraged each to attack each other. The geopolitical objective was to bog down both sides in a futile war which would drain their resources so that neither would become strong regional powers. So today we see the exact same strategy.

Michel Chossudovsky interviewed on the Guns and Butter show clearly outlines the ISIS is a tool of the Western governments.

In the show he states the obvious:

Everything indicates this capture of a city of more than 1 million people was staged because it is impossible for a force of 1000 rebels to come in and take over a city of 1 million when it has a standing army of 30,000. It was a very well equipped army and would have decimated those 1000 rebels in no time, with US advanced technology, helicopters and so on.

The commander general of those forces left the city -was either told to leave or co-opted in some way.

The US has recently said that there will be no intervention until Maliki steps down.
The Shia Maliki government is sympathetic to Iran.
The Maliki government, whilst corrupt and sectarian, has also greatly resisted US wishes in Iraq, especially in his refusal to sign the "status of forces" immunity agreement.
This effectively allows any US troops stationed in Iraq to rape and torture or go on a drunken killing spree without ever being held to account
So perhaps the US view is, "why not just get rid of the Maliki government using our jihadist proxies, while scaring up oil prices for the major oil corporations?"
And as I post, ISIS has just taken over the largest oil refinery in Iraq at Baiji

And now ISIS are armed with US heavy weapons and loaded with US dollars, there's now a wonderful excuse to attack parts of Syria. Why, to stop terrorism of course!

If we first repatriated all muslims back to their country of origin,and relied on green energy,as oposed to oil,this ''problem'' this ''crisis'' this ''humanitarian'' ''crisis'' wouldn't be our problem anymore.

The traitorous politicians that have gone before and the one's that are there currently have endangered many western countries with these homophobic muslim knuckledragger terrorists..

By having an open door situation,and aggressively enforcing multiculturalism from mainly arab lands on to our shores,we have ended up in this precarious situation,whereby more terrorist incidents could occur..Thank you traitors and red scum..

There have been shia and sunni clashes on british streets,muslim peadophile groomers etc,coming soon to a town near you....

actually with the US and Saudis arming and funding radical Islam all over the middle east and Africa and Saudi money being used to corrupt our western politicians, this issue will not "go away".

For example, Enda Kenny was recently over in Saudi Arabia with dodgy overpaid rehab head, Angela Kerins, negotiating what I don't know, but whatever the motivation, it is probably bad news for the Irish people. I wonder how much FG would need as a backhander to facilitate the planting of the seeds for a long game Irish Calliphate under sharia law?

However if there is a real problem with our borders, currently it is because of the EU open border policy not allowing us to regulate our borders proportionately to our available resources and population. Their policy of dilution as outlined by "sinister suds" in this article below should be troubling to anyone who puts value on their unique Irish culture and roots:EU should 'undermine national homogeneity' says UN migration chief Peter Sutherland

I have no problem with a proportionate quota number of unfortunate and deserving Asylum seekers coming to live here, muslim or not, as long as they are properly screened for transmissable diseases like mers / sars / ebola, are properly integrated and not allowed to form ghettos as in other countries. But in the longer term, we need to keep religions out of our schools and our legislation, be it Islam or catholicism or any other. We've had quite enough of that. A common solid secular base education for all and religion in your own time is the recipe to solve many of our social ills over time.

However I think there would be a lot less Asylum seekers in need if the US stopped kicking hornets nests all over the middle east and west Africa. That is at the root of a lot of this problem. We should not be blaming the victims all the time, just deal with them in a fair logical and proportionate manner, while addressing the root causes diplomatically at state level, instead of kissing up to the culprits whose cynical violent and self serving geopolitical agendas are causing many / most of these social catastrophes around the globe.

But Asylum is really not the problem we should be fixated on. It is mostly just a distraction. A scape goat for the masses to get angry over over. Some patsies to blame for the austerity and lack of jobs scenario engineered by the politicial classes and their bankster pals.

Clearly the people we really need to eject from our country to improve things are the political gombeens and white collar criminals in banks scheming against the Irish people for personal gain on a huge scale, not a few unfortunate Asylum seekers just trying to survive.

ISIS/ISIL has momentum, money and power behind it for sure, the speed at which this plan has been rolled out in scary. Michel Chossudovsky has a good insight as usual. In relation to Peter Sutherland and his nefarious activities, diversity is healthy up to a point although expecting people from disparate cultures to create some kind of multicultural soup is crazy. Either people want to have children with people outside of their race or culture or they don't, they've had plenty of opportunity in the past decade but it still appears to be the exception. There's also an ugly practice of peddling self hating journalism in the more middle class newspapers and magazines, the Irish are fat, ugly, stupid etc etc. We need to figure out who we actually are and what we really want, if this force breaks through to Europe/Uk we could have a fight on our hands.

For days now, since their dramatic June 10 taking of Mosul, Western mainstream media have been filled with horror stories of the military conquests in Iraq of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, with the curious acronym ISIS.

ISIS, as in the ancient Egyptian cult of the goddess of fertility and magic. The media picture being presented adds up less and less.

Details leaking out suggest that ISIS and the major military ‘surge’ in Iraq - and less so in neighboring Syria - is being shaped and controlled out of Langley, Virginia, and other CIA and Pentagon outposts as the next stage in spreading chaos in the world’s second-largest oil state, Iraq, as well as weakening the recent Syrian stabilization efforts.

Strange facts
The very details of the ISIS military success in the key Iraqi oil center, Mosul, are suspect. According to well-informed Iraqi journalists, ISIS overran the strategic Mosul region, site of some of the world’s most prolific oilfields, with barely a shot fired in resistance. According to one report, residents of Tikrit reported remarkable displays of “soldiers handing over their weapons and uniforms peacefully to militants who ordinarily would have been expected to kill government soldiers on the spot.”

We are told that ISIS masked psychopaths captured “arms and ammunition from the fleeing security forces” - arms and ammunition supplied by the American government. The offensive coincides with a successful campaign by ISIS in eastern Syria. According to Iraqi journalists, Sunni tribal chiefs in the region had been convinced to side with ISIS against the Shiite Al-Maliki government in Baghdad. They were promised a better deal under ISIS Sunni Sharia than with Baghdad anti-Sunni rule. - ---

William Engdahl is an award-winning geopolitical analyst and strategic risk consultant whose internationally best-selling books have been translated into thirteen foreign languages.

rather than re-invent the wheel, here's an excellent post by harvard Researcher Garikai Chengu

How the US Helped Create Al Qaeda and ISISby GARIKAI CHENGU

Much like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region.

The fact that the United States has a long and torrid history of backing terrorist groups will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history.

The CIA first aligned itself with extremist Islam during the Cold War era. Back then, America saw the world in rather simple terms: on one side, the Soviet Union and Third World nationalism, which America regarded as a Soviet tool; on the other side, Western nations and militant political Islam, which America considered an ally in the struggle against the Soviet Union.

The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, General William Odom recently remarked, “by any measure the U.S. has long used terrorism. In 1978-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the U.S. would be in violation.”

During the 1970′s the CIA used the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as a barrier, both to thwart Soviet expansion and prevent the spread of Marxist ideology among the Arab masses. The United States also openly supported Sarekat Islam against Sukarno in Indonesia, and supported the Jamaat-e-Islami terror group against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan. Last but certainly not least, there is Al Qaeda.

Lest we forget, the CIA gave birth to Osama Bin Laden and breastfed his organization during the 1980′s. Former British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, told the House of Commons that Al Qaeda was unquestionably a product of Western intelligence agencies. Mr. Cook explained that Al Qaeda, which literally means an abbreviation of “the database” in Arabic, was originally the computer database of the thousands of Islamist extremists, who were trained by the CIA and funded by the Saudis, in order to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan.

America’s relationship with Al Qaeda has always been a love-hate affair. Depending on whether a particular Al Qaeda terrorist group in a given region furthers American interests or not, the U.S. State Department either funds or aggressively targets that terrorist group. Even as American foreign policy makers claim to oppose Muslim extremism, they knowingly foment it as a weapon of foreign policy.

The Islamic State is its latest weapon that, much like Al Qaeda, is certainly backfiring. ISIS recently rose to international prominence after its thugs began beheading American journalists. Now the terrorist group controls an area the size of the United Kingdom.

In order to understand why the Islamic State has grown and flourished so quickly, one has to take a look at the organization’s American-backed roots. The 2003 American invasion and occupation of Iraq created the pre-conditions for radical Sunni groups, like ISIS, to take root. America, rather unwisely, destroyed Saddam Hussein’s secular state machinery and replaced it with a predominantly Shiite administration. The U.S. occupation caused vast unemployment in Sunni areas, by rejecting socialism and closing down factories in the naive hope that the magical hand of the free market would create jobs. Under the new U.S.-backed Shiite regime, working class Sunni’s lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Unlike the white Afrikaners in South Africa, who were allowed to keep their wealth after regime change, upper class Sunni’s were systematically dispossessed of their assets and lost their political influence. Rather than promoting religious integration and unity, American policy in Iraq exacerbated sectarian divisions and created a fertile breading ground for Sunni discontent, from which Al Qaeda in Iraq took root.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) used to have a different name: Al Qaeda in Iraq. After 2010 the group rebranded and refocused its efforts on Syria.

There are essentially three wars being waged in Syria: one between the government and the rebels, another between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and yet another between America and Russia. It is this third, neo-Cold War battle that made U.S. foreign policy makers decide to take the risk of arming Islamist rebels in Syria, because Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, is a key Russian ally. Rather embarrassingly, many of these Syrian rebels have now turned out to be ISIS thugs, who are openly brandishing American-made M16 Assault rifles.

America’s Middle East policy revolves around oil and Israel. The invasion of Iraq has partially satisfied Washington’s thirst for oil, but ongoing air strikes in Syria and economic sanctions on Iran have everything to do with Israel. The goal is to deprive Israel’s neighboring enemies, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas, of crucial Syrian and Iranian support.

ISIS is not merely an instrument of terror used by America to topple the Syrian government; it is also used to put pressure on Iran.

The last time Iran invaded another nation was in 1738. Since independence in 1776, the U.S. has been engaged in over 53 military invasions and expeditions. Despite what the Western media’s war cries would have you believe, Iran is clearly not the threat to regional security, Washington is. An Intelligence Report published in 2012, endorsed by all sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies, confirms that Iran ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Truth is, any Iranian nuclear ambition, real or imagined, is as a result of American hostility towards Iran, and not the other way around.

America is using ISIS in three ways: to attack its enemies in the Middle East, to serve as a pretext for U.S. military intervention abroad, and at home to foment a manufactured domestic threat, used to justify the unprecedented expansion of invasive domestic surveillance.

By rapidly increasing both government secrecy and surveillance, Mr. Obama’s government is increasing its power to watch its citizens, while diminishing its citizens’ power to watch their government. Terrorism is an excuse to justify mass surveillance, in preparation for mass revolt.

The so-called “War on Terror” should be seen for what it really is: a pretext for maintaining a dangerously oversized U.S. military. The two most powerful groups in the U.S. foreign policy establishment are the Israel lobby, which directs U.S. Middle East policy, and the Military-Industrial-Complex, which profits from the former group’s actions. Since George W. Bush declared the “War on Terror” in October 2001, it has cost the American taxpayer approximately 6.6 trillion dollars and thousands of fallen sons and daughters; but, the wars have also raked in billions of dollars for Washington’s military elite.

In fact, more than seventy American companies and individuals have won up to $27 billion in contracts for work in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan over the last three years, according to a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity. According to the study, nearly 75 per cent of these private companies had employees or board members, who either served in, or had close ties to, the executive branch of the Republican and Democratic administrations, members of Congress, or the highest levels of the military.

In 1997, a U.S. Department of Defense report stated, “the data show a strong correlation between U.S. involvement abroad and an increase in terrorist attacks against the U.S.” Truth is, the only way America can win the “War On Terror” is if it stops giving terrorists the motivation and the resources to attack America. Terrorism is the symptom; American imperialism in the Middle East is the cancer. Put simply, the War on Terror is terrorism; only, it is conducted on a much larger scale by people with jets and missiles.

Photo 1: John McCain meeting illegally in a rebel safe house with the heads of the “Free Syrian Army” in Idlib, Syria in April, 2013. In the left foreground, top al Qaeda terrorist leader Ibrahim al-Badri (aka Al-Baghdadi of ISIS, aka Caliph Ibrahim of the recently founded Islamic Empire) with whom the Senator is talking. Behind Badri is visible Brigadier General Salim Idris (with glasses), the former military chief of the FSA, who has since fled to the Gulf states after the collapse of any semblance of the FSA. (Courtesy VoltaireNet.org)

Photo 2: U.S. Senator John McCain meeting illegally in 2013 with chiefs of the Free Syrian Army (i.e. ISIS)

There's a good article in the Irish Times that doesn't actually follow the Washington script. It is upfront about Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States sponsoring the terrorists and even goes as far as suggesting the White House and State Dept want to continue the killing.

Armed factions multiplied until there were, by some estimates, 2,000 of them. Fighters migrated from faction to faction, in search of the best arms and highest salaries eventually provided by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates and their wealthy citizens. Weapons merchants, faction leaders and donors developed economic interests which have sustained the conflict.

and

The former official says there are “marginal returns on the war, we have to see how much the peace will cost” in terms of collateral damage to the countries of the region, which he claims the US sees “only as territory” to control or lose. He argues that the “White House and State Department want to perpetuate the civil war and are not prepared to talk seriously with the Russians about bringing it to an end. Syria has become a victim of the new Cold War” between the US and Russia.

An Israeli think tank called GLORIA is the source for credible reports that ISIS attacked the Kurds in and around Kobane back in July with chemical weapons -namely mustard gas and was helped by Turkey and others. Turkey has been using the ISIS situation to attack the Kurds.